Community Development is a way of doing work with communities. The “community” can be any unified body of people: a neighborhood, set of service providers, board of directors, or a group of people with a common result they want to achieve. Many times this group of committed people has not worked together before and needs to strengthen their communication and collaborative leadership skills to be able to move from talk to action.

 

Our work is rooted in the principle that within any community, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience which can be channeled into collective action to achieve the communities’ desired results.  We work alongside people to help them build relationships with collaborative partners, identify issues of concern, and implement powerful strategies.

 

Community Solutions uses a Results Framework to support communities as they move from talk to action. This Framework includes:

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• Identification of the Result to be Achieved

• Gathering a community of people who are passionate about that Result

• Obtaining extensive knowledge about the Population that will be impacted

• Defining “how you will know if you achieve the result” – what data will change if the work is successful and setting targets for those indicators

• Research on current strategies that are being implemented and Effective Best Practices in other communities

• Bringing in new partners and forming collaborations to implement the strategies

• Implementing an “accountability framework” so the partners in the work hold each other accountable

• Measuring outcomes and refining strategies to overcome barriers and leverage success